The Surgical Oncology Training Program is designed to attract and train physicians with a clinical background in surgery into a two-year fellowship of basic and translational science research. Fellows will be mentored by and conduct bench-science experiments in the laboratory of established cancer research scientists of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCCC). Each trainee will also have a surgical oncology clinical mentor to direct the trainee's translational research focus. The two-year experience will include coursework in areas such as ethical conduct of science, molecular biology, signal transduction, biostatistics, animal models or immunology to strengthen their individual science foundation. Fellows will be required to present their work at LCCC conferences as well as at regional and national meetings to ensure their ability to clearly communicate their interpretation of experimental data. Trainees will be competitively selected after a minimum of two years of training in any of the surgical subspecialties, and who have demonstrated potential to pursue academic careers in the care of cancer patients. One or two trainees will be selected in alternate years. Over the next 5 years the research fellowship will be integrated with a nascent Clinical Surgical Oncology Fellowship in the division of surgical oncology.